7 Powerful AI Marketing Tools You Need (Tested)

Seen your LinkedIn lately? AI marketing tools are everywhere.

And each one promises a bigger ROI than the last.

The truth? It’s not necessarily hype. AI tools actually deliver impressive returns.

In fact, you get a 3.7x return for every dollar you invest in generative AI.

But ONLY if you pick the right tools.

So, to save you the guesswork, I tested seven popular AI marketing tools for various tasks. Including writing, video creation, and customer research.

Check out my in-depth reviews below for the full picture.

Short on time? View each tool’s highlights here:

What Are the Best AI Marketing Tools?

1. ChatGPT

Best all-purpose AI marketing assistant

Price: $20+/month; limited free plan available

I can’t write about the best AI tools for marketing without starting with ChatGPT.

The large language model (LLM) isn’t just popular.

It actually gets more searches than “AI.”

What makes it so good?

It can handle just about any marketing task, customized to your industry.

From a quick Instagram caption for your DTC skin care company to a detailed content strategy with audience segmentation, ChatGPT does it all.

But here’s the not-so-secret secret: ChatGPT is only as good as your prompts.

Bad prompts = bad answers.

But learn how to communicate with ChatGPT effectively (aka prompt engineering), and it becomes the ideal AI tool for marketing teams.

Create Relevant First Drafts

ChatGPT helps you go from blank page to first draft on any topic, fast.

(For more, check out our guide: How to Use AI for Writing Exceptional Content.)

The tool can significantly speed up the content creation process, no matter the format.

This includes SEO blog posts, product descriptions, email campaigns, and more.

For example, I often use it to organize my ideas and draft marketing content more efficiently.

I typically provide it with custom inputs like:

• A content brief and project guidelines
• Data from tools like Semrush
• Competitive intelligence
• Initial research notes

By feeding this information up front, the output becomes more relevant to the project goals.

But this isn’t copy-paste content writing right out of the gate. Every output still needs a human pass.

You’ll also likely need to refine your prompt multiple times to get the highest quality results from ChatGPT.

Accelerate Customer Research

ChatGPT is a powerful support tool for customer research.

Use it to:

• Write better survey questions
• Analyze sentiment
• Extract actionable insights from raw feedback

For example, voice of customer (VoC) research used to be my biggest time-sink for conversion optimization projects.

I’d spend weeks organizing data and tagging themes.

Now, I run the same process with ChatGPT in a fraction of the time.

I attach dozens of customer reviews from Google, TrustPilot, and internal surveys. Then, ask it to identify sentiments and motivations.

It takes care of the grunt work and identifies patterns fast.

(So, I can focus on finding valuable insights, not just sorting through data.)

This same process also gives me the exact language customers use to describe their challenges.

I then use that language to write copy that resonates and build experiences that address customer pain points.

Pros and Cons

2. Semrush

Best for full-stack marketing with deep AI visibility

Price: $139.95+/month; AI Toolkit and Enterprise AIO require separate plans

Semrush is quickly becoming one of the most versatile AI-powered marketing platforms out there. It’s no longer just an SEO tool.

Whether you’re building an SEO strategy, planning content, launching paid campaigns, researching competitors, or tracking how your brand shows up in AI-generated answers — Semrush has a solution for it.

And unlike many startups racing into the AI space, Semrush brings something most don’t: infrastructure. It’s backed by more than a decade of data, crawling power, and product development.

Here’s how you can use Semrush to get ahead in the AI-powered marketing landscape:

Track Your Brand in AI Search

The most powerful thing Semrush offers in the AI space is visibility. Specifically: How is your brand showing up in AI-generated answers across LLMs?

That’s where Enterprise AIO comes in.

It tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews — measuring:

• Brand, product, and concept mentions
• Sentiment and quote-level context
• Share of Voice compared to competitors
• Citations and sources used in AI responses
• Visibility trends by region, topic, or model

If you’re an enterprise or managing a well-known brand, this is the most advanced solution available.

See What AI Platforms Say About You

The Semrush AI Toolkit is built for SMBs, lean teams, and growing brands that want to understand how AI platforms talk about them — and where they can improve.

For $99/month per domain, you can:

• Monitor your brand’s presence in ChatGPT, SearchGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and more
• Track Share of Voice and sentiment over time
• Discover high-intent queries and emerging topics
• Get recommendations on where to improve content and messaging

It’s not “lite” — it’s focused. And for many teams, it’s exactly what they need to stay visible in the AI-driven search landscape.

It even provides recommendations based on AI query data and sentiment trends.

This means you can quickly jump on emerging topics in your industry.

Or address user concerns before they become a problem.

For example, when I entered the domain warbyparker.com (an eyeglass company), the AI Toolkit revealed that users repeatedly asked about unclear payment and financing options.

The tool also made a helpful recommendation to solve this problem:

Clearly communicate financing details on the website and in the checkout flow.

That’s the real value here: The Semrush AI Toolkit doesn’t just give you data.

It also surfaces patterns from user queries. So you can identify pain points and fix them before they can hurt conversions.

Keep Social Content on Brand

The Semrush Social Media Toolkit uses AI to help you create and organize a social strategy.

It lets you easily create weeks of on-brand content in minutes. And schedule it across major platforms so your posting stays consistent.

Here’s how it works:

The AI-powered tool finds trending topics your audience cares about. (And updates daily.)

Select any topic, and the tool will auto-draft a post that aligns with your brand voice and campaign goals.

Customize it further with AI-generated hashtags, images, or scripted videos.

Finally, schedule and publish across Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and more, with the click of a button.

Bada bing bada boom!

Pros and Cons

3. Flick

Best for social media marketing on a budget

Price: $18+/month; 7-day free trial available

Want to look like you have a full content team without paying for one?

Use Flick.

This AI tool builds your social media marketing strategy, writes engaging posts, and maintains your publishing calendar.

Set your content pillars once in the Brand Hub, and Iris (Flick’s AI tool) will handle the rest.

This includes:

• Auto-generating post ideas that align with your strategy
• Repurposing blog posts into ready-to-publish social content
• Creating a publishing calendar for Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook

It’s perfect for founders and marketers juggling 17 other priorities.

(Or anyone who knows they should be posting more but never has time to sit down to plan it all out.)

Create a Social Media Calendar

Most social tools just help you schedule posts.

But Flick also helps you figure out what to post.

Its AI assistant helps you create a social media calendar without hours of brainstorming.

For example, I used Flick to create a 30-day calendar in under five minutes.

Here’s how I did it:

First, I set up the Brand Hub with my content pillars.

• Conversion copywriting
• AI
• Funnel optimization for SaaS and ecommerce

Then, I defined my brand voice and target audience.

Next, I selected a time frame (I went with a full month).

And in under a minute, Iris generated a list of post ideas aligned with my content pillars.

Its suggestions included:

• Create a video showcasing five SaaS companies with standout value propositions
• Share three AI prompts marketers can use to boost email subject line performance
• Post before/after funnel results from a client that highlight how I increased signups

All I had to do was click “Add to scheduler,” and my content calendar was set.

I now have a month of content ideas that I can easily turn into posts.

(Yep, Flick’s AI can write, too.)

Repurpose Long-Form Content

Got a blog post or YouTube video you worked hard on?

Flick’s “Repurpose” feature turns that content into social-ready posts.

The process is simple:

Click “Iris” > “Repurpose Blog Post.”

Then, enter the URL.

This can be a blog post, YouTube video, or newsletter. And that’s all you have to do.

I tested this using my AI SEO tools article.

Within seconds, Iris analyzed it and came up with four social post ideas.

I picked one.

And the AI generated a post that captured the article’s core message.

It was perfect for social.

For each post, you can:

• Adjust text length from one line to full caption
• Refine hashtags for better reach
• Attach media
• Schedule posts

You also have the option to customize each post for different social media platforms.

Pros and Cons

4. Canva

Best for fast visual content generation

Price: $15/month; free plan available

You probably already know Canva.

This graphic design tool lets you create anything from a tweet graphic to a full marketing campaign.

But now it’s added AI into the mix with its Magic Studio.

Provide a prompt, and the tool will design a graphic, write image text, and even generate code.

From first idea to final creative, Canva’s AI speeds up marketing design without leaving the platform.

Two things impressed me the most:

• The learning curve was negligible. I didn’t need a tutorial to get started.
• The AI Image generation tool created exactly what I had envisioned

Turn Ideas into Visual Assets

Canva’s AI can generate full visual assets, including presentations, social posts, infographics, and more.

Inside Magic Studio, you’ll find various options:

• Design for me: Creates on-brand templates for things like social posts and presentations
• Create an image: Generates images from text prompts
• Draft a doc: Writes blog posts, emails, social posts, and more
• Code for me: Creates code for interactive elements like website pages, quizzes, and more

I put this to the test by asking it to create a slide deck based on a Backlinko article.

My prompt included copy for each slide.

So, how did Magic Studio do?

It generated four slide decks for me to choose from that were pretty good.

But it didn’t follow the exact copy from my prompt.

So, I had to tweak the text and update the images. (Which was super easy.)

While the AI image generator made generating visuals simple, I wouldn’t exactly call it “fast.”

It would’ve taken me at least an hour to build Canva slide decks from scratch.

But with Magic Studio, it took me about 15 minutes. Not bad.

Check out the final output below.

What do you think?

Pros and Cons

5. Synthesia

Best for video creation without filming

Price: $29+/month; free plan available (no downloads)

Synthesia is one of the fastest ways to turn your ideas into presenter-style videos.

Use it to create:

• Product demos
• Staff training content
• Explainer or onboarding videos
• Global communications in different languages

With over 200+ AI avatars and support for over 140 languages and voices, it’s great for teams that need professional multilingual videos fast.

Even better?

You don’t even have to step in front of a camera.

Create Videos Without Filming

Synthesia lets you create a video from a file, URL, prompt, or script.

You start by entering your inputs into the AI Video Assistant.

For this test, I used this URL: https://www.semrush.com/kb/801-advertising-toolkit.

I wanted to create a promotional video for Semrush’s PPC Advertising Toolkit.

Synthesia’s AI assistant guided me through the process.

It prompted me to enter the URL and fill out key details: video length, audience, tone, objective, and speaker.

Synthesia then generated a video outline.

From there, I could:

• Add or delete chapters
• Change the avatar and voice
• Tweak the script for each scene
• Add music, transitions, or new slides

I made a few changes that included swapping out my avatar from dozens of options.

(You can also record yourself to create a personal avatar.)

Was the result flawless? Not quite.

The script needed a little polishing, and the AI avatar was… obviously AI.

But for an AI-generated video, with no filming, editing, or voiceover work, it was impressively functional.

 

Localize Videos

Synthesia’s AI recreates videos in over 140 languages and dialects.

This means global brands and organizations can create localized video content without hiring voice actors or re-recording footage.

For my test, I uploaded one of my TikTok videos and asked Synthesia to generate a version in French.

The result? Uncannily good.

Hearing “myself” speak in French was impressive, surreal, and erm…hilarious.

But it worked. And it worked fast.

Pros and Cons

6. AdCreative.ai

Best for scaling high-performing ads

Price: $39+/month; free plan available (up to 10 downloads)

Running paid ads? You need AdCreative.ai.

It builds complete ads (visuals + copy + CTAs) for every major platform in minutes. Including Meta, Google Ads, LinkedIn, and more.

The game-changer?

It’s trained on billions of high-performing ads, so every output is based on proven conversion patterns.

This means you’re not just getting random designs.

You’re getting pre-optimized ad creatives based on what’s already working in your niche.

Create Ads at Scale

Adcreative.ai keeps you on track when you’re working on multiple campaigns and drowning in last week’s ad copy rewrites.

Start by setting up a basic brand profile with your logo, colors, and short description.

Then, choose the type of asset you want to create: static, video, or text-based ads.

I tested this tool using one of my Backlinko articles.

First, I had it scan the site so it could understand the brand.

It automatically pulled in Backlinko’s brand details.

Then, I entered the article URL so it could scan for relevant content.

After that, I customized the ad including:

• Choosing LinkedIn as the ad platform
• Picking an ad format
• Uploading a background image (optional)

I clicked “Generate” and within seconds, I had a full batch of ad variants ready for use.

Each ad came with a layout, copy, and a “Conversion Score” — AdCreative’s prediction on how well the ad will perform.

Pretty cool.

The results weren’t perfect — a few looked a little rough out of the gate.

But every element was editable in the Creative Studio, so with a few quick tweaks, they were publish-ready.

Pros and Cons

7. HubSpot

Best for AI marketing automation

Price: $20+/month/seat; free tier available (basic CRM)

HubSpot integrates email, ads, content, automation, and customer tracking with your CRM.

Their AI (called Breeze) learns from your actual data, such as your:

• CRM records
• Campaign performance
• Customer behavior

This means you get insights specific to your audience and your sales process.

Not generic AI advice based on everyone else’s data.

That makes it feel less like software and more like a teammate who gets your business.

Identify High-Intent Leads

HubSpot’s Breeze Intelligence identifies qualified leads from your website traffic.

It tracks how visitors interact with your site.

Like what they click, how long they stay, and which pages they’ve visited more than once.

Then it combines that behavior with public data sources (like reverse IP lookup) to identify which companies they likely work for.

For example, Breeze might find a visitor from a Fortune 500 company:

• Checking out your pricing page (obvious buying signal)
• Reading through case studies (evaluating your results)
• Making repeated visits (consistent interest)

That’s someone interested in your product. In other words, the kind of leads your sales team should be talking to.

You can also personalize your outreach to what these prospects have already viewed.

That’s huge.

Say the right thing at the right time to the right person, and you don’t have to do the hard sell.

The momentum’s already there. You just help it along.

Pros and Cons

3 AI Marketing Tool Runner-Ups

These AI tools for marketers didn’t make the top spots.

But they have standout features for specific marketing tasks that make them worth considering.

1. Hootsuite

Best for advanced social media analytics

Price: $149+ per user/per month

Hootsuite uses AI to streamline social media publishing on all your social channels.

Its OwlyWriter AI generates post ideas, repurposes top-performing content, and writes captions in your brand voice.

But what sets Hootsuite apart is its AI social listening model, Blue Silk AI.

It scans millions of conversations, on and off social, to detect brand mentions and analyze audience sentiment in real time.

Then, it:

• Suggests the best times to post based on engagement patterns
• Identifies organic content worth boosting with paid ads
• Surface trending topics in your niche

These AI features let your social team move faster and make data-driven decisions.

But it’s more complex than beginner tools like Flick.

It also comes with a higher price tag. (It starts at $149 per user/month compared to Flick’s $18/month.)

Still, if you’re managing multiple brands on all major platforms and need AI to help you plan and optimize at scale, Hootsuite is tough to beat.

2. Claude

Best LLM for content creation

Price: $17+ per month; free plan available

Claude is an LLM, much like ChatGPT.

But it runs on a different framework called Constitutional AI, designed to make it more helpful, honest, and human in its responses.

In my experience, Claude is great at picking up on nuance, understanding intent clearly, and handling tone with consistency.

Many marketing writers I’ve talked to love it for long-form content.

Why?

Because Claude keeps voice and structure consistent across thousands of words.

That makes it ideal for things like sales pages, reports, and anything that requires flow and cohesion.

3. Zapier

Best AI marketing tool for plug-and-play automation

Price: $29.99/month; free plan available

Want powerful AI workflows without migrating to an all-in-one platform?

Zapier is the answer.

Unlike tools like Hubspot that require you to use their ecosystem, Zapier connects over 8,000 apps. Including Gmail, Mailchimp, Slack, and Salesforce.

This means you can create countless generative AI workflows that save you time.

Here’s an example:

• A customer emails a question via Gmail
• ChatGPT analyzes the message and drafts a personalized reply
• This reply is sent and automatically logged in your CRM
• A follow-up task is created in your project management tool
• A summary is sent to Slack to keep your team in the loop

Set it up once in Zapier, and your entire workflow runs on autopilot.

Next Step: Get AI to Talk About Your Brand

AI marketing tools make creating assets faster and easier than ever before.

They also help you scale your business with less effort.

Your next step? Dominating Google’s AI Overviews.

Learn how to optimize your site for AI Overviews to improve (or regain) your organic visibility. Get ahead of the curve and turn AI search into your next growth engine.